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Scope:

Introduction & Scope

Aluminum and its alloys offer an extremely wide range of capability
and applicability, with a
unique combination of advantages that make it the material of choice
for numerous products and
markets. It is the purpose of this presentation to (a) provide an
overview of the various types of
aluminum alloys that are available to engineers, designers, and others
considering aluminum for new
products or applications, and (b) to describe the properties and
characteristics that make aluminum
alloys so useful.

The breadth of individual alloys and of applications is so broad that
it will be necessary to hit
only the highlights and provide representative examples. For more
detail on the alloys, their
properties, and the applications, I refer you to the new textbook on
the subject, "Aluminum:
Technology, Applications, and Environment", by Dr. Dietrich G.
Altenpohl.

In what follows, we will look first at the Aluminum Association Alloy
and Temper Designation
Systems, as these are the systems that make the tracking and
recognition of the alloys and their
characteristics relatively straightforward. Then we will begin an
overview by alloy type, first for
wrought alloys and then for cast alloys, covering the characteristics
and most important
applications of those alloys. By way of background, wrought alloys are
those which are cast as
ingot or billet and then mechanically worked by some process such as
rolling, extrusion, or
forgings to final form; cast alloys are those which are cast to final
or near final form with out
any mechanical working. The wrought and cast alloys, their properties
and their applications are
somewhat different and so we will discuss them separately.